Christ Church is an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church building serving a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

on the southern side of

Warminster Warminster () is a historic market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in south-west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of 18,173 in 2021. The name ''Warminster'' occurs first i ...

, Wiltshire, England.

History

The church was built in 1830–31 to the designs of John Leachman, at the instigation of William Dalby, vicar of the parish church of St Denys', as a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...

to serve what was then Warminster Common. It was part-funded by the Church Building Commission and had a large nave with a capacity, including a gallery, of 882. The church is built in yellow brick with limestone dressings; the west tower has pinnacles described by Pevsner as tall and heavy. In 1871 the church was expanded with the addition of the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

and

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

designed by T.H. Wyatt. In 1881 the ceiling of the nave, which was becoming unstable, was replaced with wooden beams and pillars to form arcades, and the balcony or gallery was removed. The building was designated as a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

in 1952. During the late 1960s an attempt was made to modernise the worship in the church, and a nave altar was built. This was a controversial move and led, eventually, to a

consistory court A consistory court is a type of ecclesiastical court, especially within the Church of England where they were originally established pursuant to a charter of King William the Conqueror, and still exist today, although since about the middle of th ...

. The vicar wanted to symbolically bring the worship of the church to a more central place in the church. However, this move divided the church and a number of the congregation, and those outside the congregation complained that there had been no consultation. Eventually a parishioner appealed to an ecclesiastical consistory court. The case was lost by the vicar and church wardens as the court found that insufficient consultation about the change had occurred. Although the altar was not removed, the affair caused a rift in the church and a number of people felt strongly enough to move to worship elsewhere. In 2004 a major redevelopment of Christ Church began with the complete reordering of the worship space, the addition of a raised dais, the removal of the nave altar and pews, and a new lobby. The second phase of the development project included the utilisation of the mezzanine floor area above the lobby of the church. Creating meeting rooms and more functional space, this work was completed in 2014.

Parish

At first a chapel of ease within the parish of St Denys, in 1838 a district was assigned to Christ Church which included the Common, Boreham and part of the town. It gained its own parish in 1863, and at the same time Boreham was returned to Warminster parish. There were boundary changes affecting the parishes of Warminster, Christ Church, Bishopstrow and Boyton in 1956, and again involving

Norton Bavant Norton Bavant is a small village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Wiltshire, England, southeast of Warminster. Geography The village is on the River Wylye and at the edge of Salisbury Plain. To the north lies Scratchbury & Cotle ...

and Upton Scudamore in 1959; today the parish covers a segment of the southern half of Warminster, and extends southwest into part of the

Longleat Longleat is a stately home about west of Warminster in Wiltshire, England. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, it is a Grade I listed building and the seat of the Marquesses of Bath. Longleat is set in of parkl ...

estate.

List of vicars

References

{{Commons category Warminster, Christ Church Warminster, Christ Church Warminster Churches completed in 1830 19th-century Church of England church buildings 1830 establishments in England